My allotment flowers, castration! and knitting!

My summer vegetables may be selling out , my onions, leeks and sweetcorn are not quite ready, but my allotment flowers are going from strength to strength. Next year I have decided that the wild flower border will be a huge affair, as will my cultivated cut flowers such as the gladioli (right) which have looked so well this year.





George has spent the afternoon in the allotment as I have been re shaping the beds. He adores watching the hens, and has done so for long,long periods without moving..wagging his tail very gently when they walk closer to the wire than he can stand. Unfortunately William picked on him in a fit of excitement when the pack went round to Carole's this afternoon to socialise with Celt and Samson, and a full, fight ensued (again!!) Apart from a bloody ear (George) and a bitten shoulder (Meg) there were few injuries, but I am seriously worried that one day soon a fight may get seriously out of control. This week William gets booked in for castration, which will hopefully help, but I have to think long and hard on a contingency plan if this does not do the trick. George's safety is paramount .I have emailed Susan the terrier" guru" for advice and await a reply soon

Chris has restarted his knitting fad of a couple of years ago and has started a scarf for me ( this Christmas or next?)...we will see.....

ITU plans

Sometimes a shift on Intensive care can be deathly boring. My patient was a diabetic coma victim, and therefore made a miraculous recovery after literally litres of fluids and electrolytes. By midday he had been discharged leaving me patient-less for the rest of the 12 shift. In between helping the other nurses with their patients I have spent much of the day internet surfing and making lists, which is one of my greatest passions. I have also sold 5 bags of runner beans, a large marrow,two jars of pickled shallots,2 bags of broad beans and two dozen eggs and must have looked a sight walking onto ITU with two trugs full of produce.

saw this on the BBC website:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6964541.stm

Police warning over escaped bird
A buzzard which has escaped from its Prestatyn holding could attack small children, officers have warned.
North Wales Police are asking members of the public to be on the look-out for the bird, which is of the red-tailed variety.
They described it as the size of a seagull, with brown plummage and a distinctive red tail and strap belt.
There are concerns that under certain circumstances it could attack children wearing baseball hats or small caps.

hey, if this story is true well every chav in this area is at risk..........I say good luck to the bugger!!

anyhow my list for this week includes:-
1. Painting the back of the cottage antique white (next door has painted theirs making ours look a bit grubby)
2. planting winter onions/turnips
3. finishing the second potato bed
4. seeing the film Sunshine (2007) at Theatre Clwyd
5. tick spraying the chickens which is a most disgusting job ( you have to spray around their bum holes which is upsetting for them as well as a stomach churning job for me!

off to bed........v v tired

Uncle Bert

There is one thing about living in the area in which you were brought up in, and that is you have the potential to have more contact with extended family members. Now, my siblings and I have never lived in the pockets of aunts and uncles, cousins and those pseudo-relatives we all seemed to have in the 1960s (Uncle Fred and Auntie Greta- friends of my parents); but I think as I get older, contact with them ( albeit brief and sporadic) seems a little more important. Some of the reason , I suspect, lies in the fact that my parents are no longer here, and their contemporaries are now in their late seventies, and are looking more frail, or at least a lot older and strangely "smaller" than they ever used to be.

A few days ago I saw my Uncle Bert in town. He is my father's Brother and the only one alive out of three boys. He is also suffering from the early stages of dementia, which seemed suddenly evident when I greeted him as for a brief moment I am sure he didn't really remember just who I was. As children we were always closer to my mother's family, and my father's side had contact with us only at the odd family party and on Christmas lunchtime. But the important thing was that they seemed to be always there ! Fairly distant, in the main but definitely constants in our lives. Coming to the conclusion that they may not always be around, even in the periphery of your life, is a little sad.

Now I am not going to change my contact with them in any drastic way, I do pop in with some eggs and the odd spare vegetable from the allotment, and their obvious joy and gratitude for a small kindness perhaps brushes away residual guilt for not always being therefore my parents before their deaths. My second cousin Carol has blustered back on the horizon with entries in the flower show, and Cousin Stuart is a stones throw away in Gwynedd, so in some ways it is a case of -what goes around, comes around.......

In a different vein my Aunt Judy is coming for tea tonight (I am actually baking an apple pie! can you believe it?) Being in Trelawnyd has rekindled a family connection there , which had always been present from when I was a youngster. Her husband Tom, (my Father's youngest and most affable brother) was always my favourite Uncle as he had a natural warmth and sociability ; visiting their house was always a pleasurable experience.Which is revisited when Judy comes to tea. (pic Judy, Chris and Maddie)

Funny but thoughts of the above were triggered by some off the cuff but nevertheless pithy memories recounted by Jenny Eclair on LBC this morning......I guess all of us have families that are less like the Minivers but more like the fractured and brittle one seen in something like Hannah and Her Sisters.....

Nice Pic

small talk

I think I have mentioned before, that I have learnt the art of small talk when taking part in every day village life. There are times when it works well, as in today's visit to a local antique shop. I stopped off there on the way back from the weekly shop, and struck up a general conversation with the owner. We talked about allotments and gardening for a while, and when I mentioned about having organic eggs for sale, she seemed to prick up her ears! I had already shown an interest in a small mantle mirror but couldn't by it as I was skint!, and she offered me the mirror for 17 weeks worth of eggs! sorted! My first, non food related barter!

The weather has been glorious, the view from Prestatyn hillside has never been so clear and although you cannot see it clearly from the photo, the mountains on Cumbria could be seen quite clearly across the bay

Smirnoff 'Sea' TV advert

we saw this advert at the cinema tonight, and I must admit I was so impressed with it! Loved the planes soaring gracefully out of the water..... better than anything Lord of the Rings had to offer........enjoy

The ever pragmatic Jason Bourne, Stardust and Cynicism

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) is one of those superior remakes/sequels we have got to know all too well in recent years as Hollywood sticks to the tried and tested. Despite this I did enjoy it as British director Paul Greengrass (he of the amazing and traumatic United 93 ) gave the whole thing a bit a zip! Essentially the film is three exciting set piece chases, but they are so exciting,you can forgive the rest of the convoluted story line! Incidentally the striking Joan Allen does look a bit like a head on a stick!

This morning a friend "said" quite eloquently..

I’m reminded here of Carl Sagan’s expression, “we are all made
of stardust”, something that I’ve been thinking an awful lot about recently,
that we are only a moment in space and time, and nothing else: the lines on a
map, the breath of our last words, the ink on the paper, the sound of the ship
at night..............I perhaps ought to remind myself, without complacency,
that I still have some very, very important friends who have stayed with me over
the years (and me, with them) and with whom I have never had any reason to feel
insecure. I guess they are my stardust, and me theirs.

I think I understood what they were trying to convey, and I was touched by what was said, as indeed I was when another friend Nia, (On holiday in the Uk from home in Australia) simply texted me asking if we could meet next week. No song and dance, no games,no agenda, just a simple positive invitation to catch up! Sorted out to catch up with Nu in October in a similar simple way yesterday,and that got me thinking of another friend who sometimes adopts a more cynical attitude to other people's life choices,statements and actions. Although I can be challenging (understatement) I do always try to take a positive view of my Friends' lives and I find the odd negative "jibe" from this one friend rather upsetting at times and difficult to ignore as I am not always sure of where it actually comes from. Perhaps it may just be realistic to accept that stardust is not always a fluffy bunny type of thing!

feeling rather stuffy and head cold-like! I feel a duvet on the couch day coming on

silliness, the nicest part of the day and a few thoughts

I was amused to read that a racism row has broken out after villagers posed as 'Muslim Page 3 girls' during a carnival parade in Newquay.
The 17 revellers dressed in burkhas held up placards with names such as Miss Sleptwithajudgistan and Miss Hairyassisbadistan.
The group calling themselves 'The Page 3 Beauties from the Ramalama Ding Dong Times' apparently held compasses in a bid to find Mecca and at one point the group rushed to a house shouting 'mosque, mosque', much to the amusement of the crowds. (I did find that rather funny),


Harmless fun or racist and dangerous given the present political climate? well it can be debated both ways; I would like to think that the carnival goers intentions were innocent ( after all as a child I remember all sorts of "gentle" micky takes in our own local parades), but sadly I somehow doubt it in this rather stupid case.

Chris left the cottage at some unearthly hour this morning, to catch a train to Scotland for a conference, so I had to get up at dawn to see to the dogs and to let the girls out of the hen houses. I don't usually get up until 8 am, so today's 6 am start was a bit of a jolt, but the weather is so glorious and the view from the window, so pretty, I am reminded that this part of the day is probably the best. I have listened to the radio whilst drinking my filter coffee ( my treat for the day) and have read e mails and the news , and apart from a brief moment of farce when William and Meg pulled half a dozen eggs off the kitchen table, all has been peaceful.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else